Orleans continues 9/11 remembrance ceremony
Crowd gets smaller but attendees say they’ll never forget
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – Albion police officers, Orleans County sheriff’s deputies and chaplains recite the Pledge of Allegiance on Thursday evening during a Sept. 11 memorial service at the Courthouse Square.
The memorial was on the 24th anniversary of the terrorists attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, including 60 police officers in New York City.
A giant American flag is displayed high over Main Street from Murray and Albion ladder trucks.
Firefighters stand during the service, including from right: Scott Buffin, deputy emergency management coordinator for Orleans County; and Steve Cooley, Medina fire chief.
There were 343 firefighters in New York City who died on Sept. 11, 2001.
There were about 75 people at the memorial service on Thursday. That may have been the smallest crowd for the annual service. One of the Albion firefighters said he was disappointed by the turnout, saying people seemed to have forgotten the horrors of Sept. 11, when four airplanes were hijacked.
The terrorists attack killed nearly 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others. Terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and the other into a field in rural Shanksville, Pa.
Brad Nudd, second from left, and other members of the Honor Guard fire during a gun salute and then Taps was played during the service.
Orleans County Legislator John Fitzak spoke at the memorial service. He said Sept. 11, 2001 remains “one of the most tragic and defining days in our nation’s history.”
The country showed its strength, resilience and unity in the days that followed after the attacks.
“In the days and weeks that followed, we saw a nation come together – neighbors helping neighbors, strangers becoming family, communities standing as one. That spirit of unity is the legacy we must carry forward,” Fitzak said.
Doug Egling plays, “America the Beautiful,” on a wind controller AE30 Roland. Trellis Pore also sang the song during the service.
Scott Schmidt, Orleans County chief coroner and a funeral director for Mitchell Family Cremations and Funerals, served as the keynote speaker at the observance. Schmidt spent three weeks with the federal DMORT team and assisted in collecting and identifying remains, and interviewing family members searching for loved ones.
He left for New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. He was there for 20 days, including a week at Ground Zero. Three of his colleagues on DMORT attended the service in Albion on Monday.
Schmidt noted that human remains from Sept. 11, 2001 continue to be positively identified by the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. As recently as Aug. 13, three more victims were identified, Schmidt said.
And the death toll continues to grow as more people die each year from their exposure to particulates while working at or near Ground Zero or from when then were fleeing the site where two skyscrapers collapsed.
“We mourn all these men and women,” Schmidt said. “We remember their lives equally. We remember their lives equally because in death, men and women of all socio-economic statue, people of all colors and creeds, of all walks of life, all men and women in death are equal.”
Fred Piano, an Albion firefighter, sounds the air horn from an Albion fire truck.
Scott Schmidt noted that an air horn was sounded when human remains were found in the rubble after the World Trade Center towers collapsed.
“That abrasive, harsh, stunning, loud, startling and mournful sound of an air horn is a real-time remembrance of the painful reality of that day,” Schmidt said.
Firefighters take down the giant flag that was displayed on Main Street across from te Courthouse. Fran Gaylord of the Murray Joint Fire District, left, and Jeremy Babcock of the Albion Joint Fire District were among the firefighters putting the flag away.
